Funded by the EU Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (ITN)

Call: FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN: Action research: Improving understanding and methodologies in early development

The Department of Psychology at Durham University and collaborating laboratories across Europe have recently been granted funding by a Marie Curie action. Two 3-year fellowships are available for the purposes of completing a PhD in Psychology at Durham University. The PhD studentships are tenable for up to 3 years and must be taken up no later than October 2012.

The two fellows will work on projects related to the interplay between semantics and action perception. One position will focus on interactions between language processing and action understanding in early development, using EEG and other methods. The second position will investigate semantics related to object knowledge and action prediction, using eye tracking and other methods.

Fellows will be hosted by the Department of Psychology. Successful applicants will be required to complete a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Vincent Reid. In addition, the PhD candidate will be allocated a supervisor from one of the network partners who can provide convergent expertise.

Network Partners include:

Department of Psychology
Uppsala University, Sweden

Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
Birkbeck College, UK

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior
Radboud University, Netherlands

Tobii AB
Sweden

Qualisys AB
Sweden

Brain Products GmBH
Germany

Eligibility conditions
Marie Curie actions carry a number of mobility constraints. Successful applicants cannot have resided more than 12 months within the last 3 years in the UK. We encourage applicants from outside the EU, but applicants should be aware that overseas tuition fees are not included in this funding. Other eligibility requirements may apply. Excellent English language standards apply for all PhD candidates to the Department of Psychology. Successful candidates will be expected to have sufficiently high written English skills to undertake the writing of their doctoral thesis in English.

Equal Opportunity
Durham University is an equal opportunity employer. We particularly encourage application from women and recognise the differing life patterns of men and women in the work and trainings sectors.

Qualifications
The fellowships are open to truly outstanding candidates who must have achieved at least a level of training that would enable them to qualify for entry into a PhD programme in their home country. This would be a first class or high upper second class degree in psychology, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, neuroimaging or related areas of research. As the PhD must be completed within the 3 years of the fellowships we anticipate that successful candidates will have already obtained training in relevant research methods (e.g., from a masters degree or equivalent training).

Conditions of employment
Successful candidates will be employed as research associates within the Department of Psychology, Durham University. A competitive salary will be offered. All payments are determined by the personal circumstances of the applicant and the details of actual salary and allowances can be obtained on request.

Application procedures
Interested applicants should apply to the Department of Psychology PhD programme online by following the links on (http://www.dur.ac.uk/psychology/postgraduate/how_to_apply/).

When applying, candidates should make it clear on their application form that they wish to be considered for a Marie Curie Studentship.

Applications should be submitted not later than Friday 16th March 2012. A short list of candidates will be invited to Durham University for interviews approximately 2 to 4 weeks following this date. We will continue to consider applications until these positions have been filled. We will announce when the positions have been filled on Dr Reid's laboratory webpages (http://www.dur.ac.uk/cdp/research/baby-lab/).

Informal enquires can be made to Dr. Vincent Reid (Vincent.reid@durham.ac.uk).

Procedural or administrative enquires regarding the application procedures or conditions of employment should be made to Norma Twomey, the departmental postgraduate administrator (pginfo.psy@durham.ac.uk).

Those submitting an application should also email Dr. Reid following submission to alert him to the application and to confirm that the application has been successfully submitted.